I became a self-employed IT consultant because I’m an anxious person.

  1. I’m afraid of being an employee: of being “trapped” in a company I don’t like because “job hopping is bad” and “the job market isn’t great right now.”
  2. But I’m also afraid of fundraising and starting a startup: I don’t want to “burn” other people’s money.
  3. And I’m afraid of building a larger company, because I don’t want to burn my own money either.

So really, I’m just very afraid of failure.

Which is totally crazy, because at the same time, I consider myself quite competent.

But I’m competent in “soft” things that are hard to measure. And I have no idea how to turn that into money—except by selling myself.

But what do I actually want?

What I really want is something completely different: I want to build a team. “Build” in the true sense—the people I work with should be happier and more “successful” after working with me than they were before (see also my personal vision).

At the same time, I want to create real value for my clients (or—and now it gets wild—actually the whole world). Ideally, I’d like to make climate change less severe or somehow promote more respect and emotional health.

But here, too, I’m afraid. Afraid that it won’t be financially viable and that I won’t be able to support my family anymore.

It’s actually totally irrational, because so far, I’ve always “failed forward.” Now and then, I’ve even had success.

They say insight is the first step to improvement. We’ll see. Now that I know what I’m afraid of, maybe I can take appropriate countermeasures.

Prove to myself that I can make money, even when doing “good” things. I just need to figure out how to do that best.